


Choices

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tvrealm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Beth's watching you again," Glenn says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's tvrealm community comment fic challenge, for the prompt "fake relationship becomes real"
> 
> * * *

"Beth's watching you again," Glenn says.

Daryl glances up from sharpening his knife when Glenn climbs up onto the picnic bench next to him, squints against the sunlight and follows Glenn's gaze. Sure enough, Beth is hovering at the periphery of the yard, ostensibly talking with her old man but taking every opportunity to look his way. When she sees him looking back her face lights up in a smile, and he quickly ducks his head, applies the knife to the strop with renewed vigour.

"Shit," he murmurs.

"Could be worse things," Glenn says.

"No, there couldn't," Daryl answers. "She's a child."

"A child with a crush," Glenn says. Out of the corner of his eye Daryl sees him lean back on his elbows, scan the fence line before turning his face to the sun. "Having never been the object of a woman's intense carnal fantasies, I'm not really sure how to handle this one."

"Don't recall askin' for your advice."

"Luckily for you, I'm going to offer it anyway. Maybe you should tell her you're already in a relationship?"

Daryl snorts, side-glances the other man. "Sure, I'll tell her I'm fuckin' her sister. Now that you've thrown Maggie off, she's fair game, right?"

"I didn't throw Maggie off," Glenn bristles.

Daryl focuses his attention on his knife, all the better to hide his smirk. "Just tossed her aside like a used tissue when you were done with her."

"Okay, it wasn't… there were problems because of my… look, things weren't working out with me and Maggie, okay? We came to a mutual agreement to… wait, why am I even discussing this with you? This is about you and Beth."

"There ain't no me and Beth!"

"There's going to be if she has anything to say about it." Glenn leans in closer, lowers his voice. "She told Maggie you're dreamy."

The thought of Beth and Maggie whispering about him when his back is turned takes all the mirth out of watching Glenn squirm. Daryl hunches his shoulders, holds the knife up to the sunlight. "Fuck off."

"Fine. Then don't come running to me when Beth corners you in one of the cells and has her way with you."

Daryl checks the edge of the blade with his finger; satisfied, he sets the strop aside and slide the knife easily home into its sheath. He risks a glance to the other side of the yard, finds that Beth is still watching him speculatively. If only all his problems were solved as easily as stabbing the walking dead through the goddamn brainpan. 

But when Glenn sits up and shifts to hop down from the table, apparently ready to leave him to his own feeble defenses, he snakes out a hand and quickly grabs the kid's bicep.

"Fine," he says begrudgingly. "Then if not Maggie, who? Lori?" Daryl scoffs. "Rick'd strew my guts all over the damn yard."

"Carol?" Glenn suggests. "She likes you. She'd play along."

Daryl drops his head, studies the worn cement. Him and Carol… they spent a lot of time together over the winter. It isn't that he doesn't like the woman. But he'd have to blind not to see the way she looks at him, sometimes. Have to be crazy not to realize that when she jokes around, uses some kind of innuendo in an attempt to make him blush, she's also half-serious, too. And he just couldn't ask her to pretend something that she almost wishes was real. 

"Nah," he says. "Not Carol."

Glenn throws up his hands. "Well, it's not like you've got a lot of choices here, dude! Pick one!"

Daryl looks up from Glenn's big brown eyes to see that Beth has left her father's side, is walking determinedly across the prison yard towards them. In the same moment, he realizes that his hand is still clutched around the kid's bicep; that Glenn isn't exactly moving away, but rather is leaning toward him, his expression a mixture of exasperation and fond amusement. 

Daryl barely has to move at all to press their lips together. 

When they part, some minutes later, his hands have somehow wound their way into Glenn's hair and the kid's fingers have pushed up beneath his tattered shirt to tickle warmly against his rib cage.

A quick perusal of the yard shows him that Beth is nowhere in sight.

"Picked one," Daryl says.

Glenn grins. "Excellent choice."


End file.
